I met a young woman named Tina when Seth’s group went prayer walking. She was sitting on her porch when we walked up. We said our hellos and immediately started talking. She used to live in New York, so she spoke English (yay!). She talked about how much she wanted to find a church she liked so her and her son could go. So, when we got back to the retreat center, we asked Erin (a leader) if we could bring her to church. She said yes, which was really exciting. So later we walked back to Tina’s to tell her about the awesome news. When we told her, she started crying and she told us how the Holy Spirit moved her when we prayed earlier and what a blessing we were. So, this Sunday, Tina and her son are coming to church with us. To me, it was truly a blessing to be able to help her and see God work like that. -Brooke Knopp
When my group went to the plaza one day I met a homeless man named Jose with a couple other people in our group. He told our translator that he was hungry, so we pitched in money and bought him a meal. I had the translator read him some verses from my Spanish Bible, since he told us that he could not read or write. He did not even know how old he was. So I had the translator read John 10:1-18 and Matthew 18:10-14. Both passages are illustrations of Jesus being our shepherd. Also I wanted him to hear Matthew 6:25-34 about how God cares for him more than the birds and the flowers. He wanted to hear more and more. He told us that his family had forgotten about him and that he was very lonely. I told him that he was NEVER alone, that God is ALWAYS with him and that he has family in Christ. I also had the translator read to him Romans 8:38-39 so that he would know that nothing could separate him from the love of God. The last verse read to him was John 3:16, so he would know truly that God loves him. He said, “it is so good to hear this.” I won’t ever forget him, because he made such an impact on me. To see his complete loneliness and then to tell him of Christ’s love and then to see hope well up inside of him to the point where he cried touched me so much. -Bethany Schoon
I’ll never forget the people on this trip with me. One person in particular stands out as I’ve watched God work through them. Because of our large team size, I didn’t really get to know them closer until we were put on the same team to go minister. Seeing her planning skits for Sunday and her ability to minister from kids to the elderly in the nursing home to teens on the street amazed me at her openness and willingness to spread the Word. It affected me because it changed my nervousness and fear of rejection of spreading the gospel. That led to a growing excitement of going out and ministering to people. So basically, I thank God for blessing me with this team and all that He is doing in and through us. -Adriel Hsu
I met Angela when we went on our Door to Door ministry. She made an impact on me because she has one son that is a war vet and he’s in the U.S. and he can’t visit her. She has 3 nieces that completely hate her and never visit her. But what really impacted me is that she has mouth cancer and she is just too peaceful about it. It told me that I need to stop thinking about the little stuff and think about the most important things. -Ceyley Cowherd
